What else is in the earth? Well, there's other people who are separated from God, and living out of their soul, and out of their their mind, and their reasoning; but this is a new creation, where God has united with man and the earth, that makes you a new creation. But you got to learn the culture and the ways of your father; you've got to learn his order in relationships, and embrace it. When we reject His order, we're rebelling against that, and we come under constantly demonic pressure and all kinds of torment.
Adam then had the potential to rule as a representative, and fulfill the call of God on his life; or, refuse and throw off it, and do what he wanted to do. When he chose that path, which is the same path we've all chosen... The Bible says all men have gone astray - "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". There is a way that seems right to man; but the end of the ways is death. All of us have taken that path, that's been our way of living.
When Adam chose to reject his father's boundaries, and living under authority and the guidance and provision of his father, a lot of things happened. He lost his relationship, he lost his capacity to represent his father; he now represented himself. He become a spiritual orphan - no father, alone in the world, and has to provide for himself. Then he becomes led by his soul, his feelings, and circumstances, and not by the spirit. He becomes self-centered, not God-centered, and he lost his authority. Quite serious. That's the condition we find people in.
When you come to Christ, then a seed is planted in you - a seed of the Kingdom of God. You now have the potential to totally be transformed, but that's not automatic. Just coming to church isn't going to do it for you. It's a help, but more is needed. I actually have to embrace the process of growing and maturing as God intended, and recognize how He does it. I need to pursue a relationship with my father, because I'm going to represent Him. I need to get to know what He is like. If you've had Brokenness in your family, you've got distorted perceptions of what God might be like, and so there's got to be a process of restoration take place. There's a lot of learning there, a lot of growing. We've got to grow up; and in order to grow us up, God puts us in His family, called the church.
People get attitudes about the church, and they've got attitudes about God and his family. I don't know about you, but when people get attitudes against my family, I kind of take it a little personally. It may not be a perfect family, but it's still my family. When you look at the local church, for all its shortcomings and shortfalls, it's still God's family. How you treat it, is how you're treating the father of that family. Think about that.
God's intention was to create a son to represent him, and that son failed miserably. God never changed the plan. He didn't have to come up with a rescue plan or anything. He actually already had planned that His son would be the restorer of the problem. In other words, instead of God trying to explain what it all looks like, He lets it unravel like a great story over history, so you can see it, study it, and then learn about how amazing God is.
Restoration came through the son. When Jesus was born, the angels all said: "glory to God on high and on earth, peace and goodwill to men".
God announced: the kingdom may have been lost, but I'm about to bring it back again.
Even Isaiah prophesized that: "unto the child is born unto us, a son is given; upon his shoulders shall be all the government".
When Jesus started his ministry, what did he start by saying? "Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand". Understand then that, with the advent of Jesus Christ, God was sending a son to refix up all the damage, and get it back on track again; but He never changed the plan, that He would have sons and daughters that would share in his rulership over creation. He just needed God's son to fix it up, which He did; and we haven't seen the full fix yet. We saw the legal part of it, and now we see it's moving towards the end, as we get towards the end times.